Yeah, I'm not trying to challenge anyone's beliefs. live and let live. my response is too philosphy for 1-liner but..

Everything, like love, in its pure state. 'love commodified' or manipulated by a controlling organization, not so much. And unfortunately, not enough exists in the abstract, without the context of gov/corp/society 'uses'.

For the record, Jesus historical activist is imo a badass. and would be every bit a rebel today in response to the behavior of would-be 'christian nations'. Jesus overturning the money-changer's tables in the temple, synonymous imo to overthrowing the tax systems that obligate the people's funding of warmongering.

I feel icky talking about it though. I gave up my anger over government issues and the like.. and now just make flippant comments that started this. Sorry Airmann for the detour.

I used to study Jesus quite a bit actually, back in the day, when I knocked on doors for two years as one of his 'Special Representatives'. Since then, I've given more interest to Zen Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle, and Baltasar Gracian.

For real? Dude we need to catch up. I have been following Buddhism for the past 5 years myself, though I relate more to Theravada Buddhism.. While I respect Zen, it seems overly cryptic to me. Too many stories of masters hitting their pupils over the head turned me off early on

Cool. I read "The Power of Now" about 5 years ago after Ambtax1 mentioned it to me. While I found it somewhat useful, I thought it was disorganized and I didn't really like his "stream of consciousness" writing style. Maybe I should read "New Earth" too?

Much more useful to me was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" which literally changed my life & perspective about a lot of things. I highly recommend it to anyone. But especially you, D-Less if you haven't read it yet

For real? Dude we need to catch up. I have been following Buddhism for the past 5 years myself, though I relate more to Theravada Buddhism.. While I respect Zen, it seems overly cryptic to me. Too many stories of masters hitting their pupils over the head turned me off early on

Cool. I read "The Power of Now" about 5 years ago after Ambtax1 mentioned it to me. While I found it somewhat useful, I thought it was disorganized and I didn't really like his "stream of consciousness" writing style. Maybe I should read "New Earth" too?

Much more useful to me was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" which literally changed my life & perspective about a lot of things. I highly recommend it to anyone. But especially you, D-Less if you haven't read it yet

I don't know how much you will like Awakening to your Life's Purpose if The Power of Now didn't do it for you. It's basically more of the same. But I love that style too. What's particularly nice is listening to any of Eckhart Tolle's books on tape, including Stillness Speaks. His voice is very soothing and peaceful.

Also that Art of Worldly Wisdom book is awesome and the format might suit your fancy as it is all broken up into short aphorisms. Originally known as Oracle I believe. Written by an exiled Jesuit priest. Why is it that holy men need to be exiled again anyway? ;P